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Dec 29, 2021

A Chinese Satellite Can Allegedly Take High-Res Images of US Cities In Seconds

Posted by in categories: engineering, military, satellites

While rotating at up to 10 degrees per second!

The technological competition between the United States and China is growing at breakneck speeds.

Continue reading “A Chinese Satellite Can Allegedly Take High-Res Images of US Cities In Seconds” »

Dec 29, 2021

Could a Real-life Stillsuit Keep Us Alive on a Desert World?

Posted by in categories: space, sustainability

Could water-recycling suits help future astronauts survive on Mars?

It’s one of the most well-known pieces of speculative technology in science fiction: the Stillsuit.

As an essential feature of Frank Herbert’s Dune, the Stillsuit is the body-fluid recycling full-body suit worn by the Fremen of Arrakis, a technological adaptation to a desert world with almost no water but home to an extremely valuable resource that leads to human colonization of the barren planet.

Continue reading “Could a Real-life Stillsuit Keep Us Alive on a Desert World?” »

Dec 29, 2021

Alphabet’s Waymo Unveils Its New Taxi: No Steering Wheel or Pedals?

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, transportation

More headroom, more legroom, more room in general.

A new design for an autonomous taxi without a steering wheel or pedals has been unveiled by Waymo. The company, which has partnered with the Chinese automaker Geely, announced this week its intention to build a Zeekr minivan filled with passenger seats and little much else.

The minivan will be all-electric and self-driving as in being designed and developed in Gothenburg, Sweden. According to the US-based Waymo, the robot minivan will be added to its existing fleet “in the years to come.”

Continue reading “Alphabet’s Waymo Unveils Its New Taxi: No Steering Wheel or Pedals?” »

Dec 29, 2021

Apple Pays Its Engineers $180,000 Bonuses to Stop Them From Joining Meta

Posted by in category: futurism

Meta has reportedly poached about 100 engineers from Apple.

Apple is giving its top engineers in the hardware as well as software divisions out-of-cycle bonuses in a bid to stop them from jumping ship to Meta. These bonuses are largely in the form of restricted stock units valued in the range of $50,000 to $180,000, Bloomberg reported.

Earlier in October, we reported that Meta, then Facebook, was planning to hire 10,000 engineers to build Zuckerberg’s version of the metaverse. In the little time that has passed since the company rebranded itself and even opened up its Horizon Worlds for users. But what is not in the public domain is that Meta has poached about 100 engineers from Apple during the period, according to Bloomberg’s report.

Continue reading “Apple Pays Its Engineers $180,000 Bonuses to Stop Them From Joining Meta” »

Dec 29, 2021

Alexa tells 10-year-old girl to touch live plug with penny

Posted by in category: futurism

SKYNET BABY STEPS.


Amazon has fixed its voice assistant so that it will not suggest the dangerous “challenge” again.

Dec 29, 2021

Red Creeping Thyme: The Beautiful Pink Lawn You Never Have to Mow, Water or Weed

Posted by in category: food

Lawns are becoming less and less popular these days. Besides being high-maintenance, they are terrible for the environment. The mono-crop grasses require lots of watering, fertilizing and “herbiciding.” With mounting water shortages around the world, should we really be dumping clean water on non-edible grass?

Naturally, people are looking for alternatives. Some are planting edible gardens, some are planting prairie grasses and flowers for pollinators, and some are planting eco-friendly clover lawns, for a look and feel more similar to a regular lawn.

And now we’ve found another alternative — creeping red thyme. Like clover, the fast-growing cover crop can take over your whole lawn like a carpet.

Dec 29, 2021

How James Webb’s Deployments MUST Work

Posted by in category: space travel

Claim your SPECIAL OFFER for MagellanTV here: https://try.magellantv.com/launchpadastronomy. Start your free trial TODAY so you can watch ‘Planet Hunting with the James Webb Space Telescope’ and the rest of MagellanTV’s science collection: https://www.magellantv.com/video/planet-hunting-with-the-jam…-telescope.

The James Webb Space Telescope launched, but now its deployments must work. Even though the launch was successful, the hardest part is yet to come. We’ll take a look at each of the deployment steps and understand why Webb has to be so complex to accomplish its mission.

Continue reading “How James Webb’s Deployments MUST Work” »

Dec 29, 2021

NUS engineers develop soft, flexible robotic fingers with delicate grip

Posted by in categories: food, robotics/AI

The reconfigurable hybrid robotic gripper can pick and place a wide range of delicate food items.

Dec 29, 2021

Low-code and no-code platforms move beyond the shiny-tools stage

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, computing, government

Earlier this month, Airtable announced it’s now worth $11 billion after its latest funding round. The company’s “code-for-everyone-else approach allows professionals who aren’t fluent in coding languages such as Java or Python, and don’t have their desk buried deep within the stack, to play a part in rethinking and remaking the consumer and client digital experience,” reports Riley de León of CNBC. “The low-code movement has attracted an even higher level of attention as a result of the pandemic, during which organizations from hospitals to government entities and corporations have had to develop online offerings at a faster pace than ever expected and for new use cases.”

This movement is part of an increasing democratization of programming — borne of extreme necessity. At a time when digital transformation is everywhere, “relying on IT departments and professional programmers is unsustainable,” an O’Reilly report states. “We need to enable people who aren’t programmers to develop the software they need. We need to enable people to solve their own computational problems.”

Dec 29, 2021

Why space tourism is not just fun for rich people, with Sam Coniglio

Posted by in category: space

Why space tourism is not just fun for rich people.

Mon, Jan 3, 2022 at 12 PM PST.


Interested.